


Misunderestimate

by gretazreta (Greta)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-19
Updated: 2007-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-23 21:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Greta/pseuds/gretazreta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe, just sometimes, violence is the answer. Or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Misunderestimate

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Written for a prompt from - "The fights are getting more and more vicious. And so is the sex." I'm not entirely sure this is a great fulfilment of the prompt. I took the title from George W. Bush as a working title, but it kind of stuck.

Dean keeps assuming that things will get better, and that’s just dumbass stupid; he should know better. Sam’s changed. People change. It’s only natural. It’s fine. It’s certainly not a _bad_ thing. Sam’s stronger, now, grown into himself in his four years away. He’s more self-assured, more certain. More argumentative. Taller, goddammit. More of a pain in the ass. He even walks differently, loping along at his own sweet time rather than matching his strides to Dean’s.

Dean keeps waiting for a moment of recognition, some sort of look in Sam’s eyes like he remembers, like he cares a fuck about any of this. But somewhere along the line, Sam’s learned to keep his feelings to himself.

He looks at Dean differently, less shyly, less sweetly. 

He looks at Dean as though he’s weighing him up, like he sees everything there is to see. Like he’s got some god-almighty _perspective_ on Dean now. Can fit him into all sorts of sociological and psycho-fuckin-logical boxes. Like Dean’s a case-study in a textbook that Sam’s read many times and understood, and cast aside.

It’s bullshit. 

But the thing is.

It’s not so much that it kinda hurts, because fuck. He’s not going to sit around all day whining like some chick on the rag because his little brother doesn’t look up to him anymore. Hell, Sam doesn’t even like him most days, and some days Dean dislikes Sam right back. 

They used to be close. Now they’re not. Sam left. Life sucks. Deal.

The thing is.

Assumptions like that can be dangerous, in their line of work. If Sam doesn’t get his head out of his ass, he’s going to get hurt, brain all filled with medieval art theory and post-modern socio-economics and regrets, because he’s not seeing what’s in front of him. He’s not seeing Dean, he’s not seeing the job. His mind’s focused on other things. Jess, the thing that killed her. Dad. There’s no way they can work together the way they need to when Sam won’t even look him in the eye.

The thing is.

Dean’s used to fooling people. If he’s honest, he finds himself telling lies that are all the more outrageous, adopting aliases that are increasingly unlikely, because sometimes he longs for people to see the joke. But people believe him, because that’s what normal does for you. Blunts your edges. Makes you tame. A life of eight-hour days and office politics and who-knows-what-crap on television in the evening domesticates you quicker than chemical castration. 

It’s their loss, most times. But it’s different when it’s Sam buying that shit, like all he can see is shoot-first-ask-questions-later Dean. I-can-fit-three-twinkies-in-my-mouth Dean. I-never-saw-a-blonde-waitress-I-didn’t-want-to-fuck Dean. Jesus H. Christ. Sam should know better.

He doesn’t.

Dean can see it, can fucking taste it. The way Sam gazes out the passenger window of the Impala like if he could get farther from Dean and still be in the car, he would. The way he rolls his eyes when they’re tracking cases and Dean says something Sam thinks is dumb, or obvious, or somehow Dean-like in some bad way that Dean doesn’t even understand. Tasteless? Maybe. Stupid? Dean doesn’t think so. But then, he has to admit that he doesn’t know what Sam’s thinking any more, either. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t like it if he did.

It’s going to end badly.

It’s like watching a person on the other side of a glass wall, and Dean wants to reach through it. Wants to smash it but he doesn’t know how. Wants to shake Sam until he wakes the hell up. Dean gets that he’s grieving, for Jessica, for the life that Dean never understood why anyone would possibly want. Part of him wishes he could get that back for Sam. Part of him is glad that’s impossible. But he’s tired of being invisible. He’s so damn tired of being lonely.

There’s days of driving, arguing over the best way to approach cases, best way to kill an incubus, best questions to ask some grieving widow, where the hell Dad’s got to, the best place to buy sage. Days of sunshine and driving and Zeppelin and roadside burgers and it’s almost, almost like it was before. 

Almost.

Night falls, and they subside into uncomfortable silence, framed by twin beds and Sam’s quiet, loaded, looks. Sam’s still a stranger, haughty, moody, judgemental, and sometimes so fucking superior that Dean longs to take a swing at him.

And inevitably, does.

Their first fight is unpractised, vicious, frustrated. Comes out of nowhere, a forest fire sparked by an ember no one saw. They grapple across the cheap motel carpet that scrubs dirty abrasions into fists and knees and elbows; all bone and muscle and raw, sharp anger. They roll hard against the corner of the bed, Sam taking the brunt of it across his ribs, and Dean takes advantage of Sam’s loss of wind and sharp cry of pain to pin him, hands above his head, tweaking his wrists hard every time Sam tries to wriggle out of it. Holds him like that, Sam’s eyes wet with fury, makes Sam look at him, look him in the eyes, until he gives a small tight nod of submission.

Yeah, you goddamn pissant. Damn right.

Dean leans in and licks a wet stripe up Sam’s bared throat, nips sharply under his jaw, where it will show, tomorrow, dark and unmistakable, and then their lips meet, messy and wet, all teeth and tongue and hot open mouths, Sam eating at him, arching up against Dean, and all Dean wants is to punish Sam and keep him close and make him understand and make him stay and make him hurt like it hurts every time Sam looks at him like he’s nothing. But he lets Sam roll him, then, lets Sam scrape his hands through Dean’s hair. He wriggles down and takes Sam’s dick in his mouth and finally lets Sam fuck his mouth til he comes with a curse that sounds like pain. Dean can almost fool himself that it means something. It’s almost enough. Almost.

Dean doesn’t come, finds his feet and then his jacket and then the door while Sam’s still trying to catch his breath.

Later, nursing a bottle of beer and a cut lip at a bar two towns away, Dean still hasn’t caught his own. He can’t stop shaking, and he’s not sure if its from anger or frustration or fear. Probably just reaction. Adrenaline. Something.

He takes a long swallow of beer, and nods to the barman for another. He doesn’t know what he’s done, and he wants to forget it. But there’s no forgetfulness, none. He can’t forget any of it. He’s sharply stingingly aware of every second of the last couple of hours, and he feels alive in a way that he hasn’t for more than four years. Guilty and dirty and despairing and _alive_. Jesus.

Sam hasn’t touched him, not til tonight. Not since Stanford. Not since Jess. Jess with her sweet sunny face and her long legs and her college education, friendly and distrustful in equal parts. Jess who couldn’t have been more different from Dean if she’d tried. 

Dean hadn’t needed to more than look at her to know exactly how far Sam had run from him. All the way. The length of the country was just the beginning. And now Jess is gone and Dean is back and however far Sammy ran it wasn’t enough. No wonder he can’t look at Dean, every day wishing it had been Dean, not Jess, taken by the demon. Wondering each day if Dean’s glad. Dean isn’t, and he’s aware of a faint sense of relief that that’s true, because he’s all sorts of fucked-up, but even he has boundaries. Ethics, of a kind. 

He hopes that’s true so much that it makes him feel faintly sick. He thinks of Sam, back in the motel, and thinks that he probably blames Dean. For Jess. For coming for him. For letting this start all over again. For all of it, and Dean can’t think how Sam wouldn’t.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

He has another drink, then a few more. He hooks up with a tiny redhead with three rings in her ear and one in her nipple, screws her in the restroom using a rubber from the dispenser, hand leaving an open palmed smear on the mirror over her head. He doesn’t kiss her; it’s not about that and they both know it, her eyes watching him narrowly til they wince close as she comes. He spares a moment to wonder who _she’s_ escaping from. She doesn’t give him her number; he doesn’t give her a second glance. He sleeps in the car.

Next day Sam is silent, brooding, and Dean turns the music up loud. 

In Iowa, they kill a Black Dog. In Idaho, they salt and burn a poltergeist. The unsaid hangs between them, and by the time they reach Indiana, the tension inside the car is at breaking point.

They argue, and Dean sneers, and this time Sam throws the first punch. They’re on each other in an instant, snarling, brawling, fists slamming into ribs and knees narrowly missing groins, pushing and jabbing, hands full of each other’s shirts and Sam catches Dean a really quite stellar blow to the chin and he’s stumbling back against the wall, and his head meets the edge of a framed picture and then there’s blood in his eyes and a blur in his field of vision and when Sam’s hand arrives gentle and apologetic on his chin to check him, Dean bites his wrist. He tastes wet copper, and Sam curses and slaps him, bitch-slap right across the jaw, _that’s my boy_ and then Dean’s face to face with the dusty yellow wallpaper, Sam’s hand down the front of his pants, Sam’s erection riding the cleft of his ass through two layers of rough denim, Sam’s breath hot and angry in his ear.

Dean’s not sure who comes first, this time. He’s pretty sure it might be him, and it’s overwhelming, all-engulfing, like a punch in the face, and it tastes like dust and blood and despair.

Sam won’t look at him, after, just slouches off to the bathroom, and when Dean hears the shower go on, he slides off his boots and crawls into bed, fully clothed. He’s too amped to sleep, but he gives a passable imitation when Sam emerges. He hears Sam whisper his name, and he can hear the distress in his brother’s voice, but he mimes shifting in his sleep, and rolls away. 

Dean dreams of empty motel rooms and echoes; dreams of falling and stutters himself awake; dreams of broken mirrors and salt and Sam.

In a deserted mental hospital, they salt and burn a vengeful spirit, and Sam shoots Dean in the chest with a round of rock-salt, and three times in the face with an unloaded gun. He’s not possessed, not really, just unfettered, everything that’s been between them. He kills Dean, or tries to, and Dean knows why: because Dean killed Jess, led the demon right to their door and took Sam away when maybe he might have protected her. He kills Dean because Dean killed normal. He kills Dean because Dean loves him, too much and not enough. 

Afterwards, outside, Sam wants to talk about it. Dean doesn’t. Everything’s been said.

That night, it’s kinda bad, even for them. Dean gives Sam a black eye, a real beauty, horrifying in its satisfaction, and Sam breaks Dean’s wrist, tackling him to the floor. They both hear the crack, unmistakably loud in the silence between them, and their eyes meet in a sudden moment of bemused understanding. Dean doesn’t know how they got here. Knows that Sam didn’t mean to do that, can see naked shock in the depths of his eyes. Which shows that Sammy still doesn’t get it. Sam can break every bone in his body, if he wants. Dean’s _his_ , always has been. His to keep, which inevitably means his to throw away. And in the mean time, they’re dancing, fighting, killing each other, around the things that they can’t say. 

His wrist aches, a sharp throb that matches his heartbeat.

Sam drives him to the emergency room, and they sit, side by side in silence as the nurse puts on a cast. Dean’s acutely aware of Sam’s thigh warm against his own, and that it’s the first time they’ve touched, not in anger, for almost as long as he can remember. Dean winces as she squeezes the plaster into place, and lays his head on Sam’s shoulder.

Later, Dean sits on the edge of his bed and watches Sam pack, methodically, folding each t-shirt the same way, folding his socks together just so. Geek. It’s as painful as he anticipated and it doesn’t even make him feel better that he was right. Of course Sam’s leaving. He was never really here anyway.

“Don’t go.”

The words hang there, and Dean’s almost surprised to hear them, even as he tastes them in his own mouth. Organises his face into blankness, because maybe he can blame it on the shot of morphine they gave him before they set his arm.

Sam doesn’t even look at him. 

“I hurt you,” Sam replies, and his voice is quiet and bleak. It sounds like he’s already left, he’s already miles away, and maybe Dean was a fool to ever hope otherwise.

He blinks, feeling the dust prick his eyes, cradles his cast to his chest.  
“I’m sorry,” Dean offers.

Sam glances at him, expression hooded, but Dean’s pretty sure there’s anger in there, and frustration. “I know,” Sam answers with a shrug. Folds another shirt, slowly, methodically, and Dean wonders if he’s felt anything at all, since Dean arrived in his living room, in the middle of the night.

Dean thinks he might throw up, the words he wants to say tangled in his throat, making him want to gag.

There’s a moment of silence. Dean tries to breathe. Tries to think of what to say, but there’s nothing. He doesn’t do this. He’s not persuasive, he’s not emotional. He tries to find his anger, but it’s faded. His arm throbs, dully, and he holds it to his chest.

“Why do you want me to stay?” Sam asks, after a minute.

Dean looks at him and the question makes no sense.  
He stops, and tries to think it through, but it doesn’t help.

Dean wonders what Sam was like with Jess. He figures Sam was gentle, respectful, kind. Sam’s that kind of a guy, on some level that Dean doesn’t understand. Maybe that’s what Sam thinks love is. And maybe it is, for other people. For Dean it’s the smell of his brother’s sweatdamp hair, a trunk full of weapons, a shared past of anger and fire and death. He’d die for Sam, and figures some day he will, one way or another. Step in front of a wendigo for him. Take a bullet for him. Drink himself to death in some Midwest bar after Sam goes back to college. 

The space between them has never been so wide. Sam’s staring at Dean, still seeking an answer that he’s got to know Dean can’t give, and Dean can’t carry the gaze. He drops his eyes, and he can still feel Sam’s eyes on him. Damn Sam, damn him to hell. 

There’s no way out.  
Dean’s hunted his whole life; he knows when he’s beaten.

Dean keeps his eyes down as he shuffles his way into Sam’s personal space, step by faltering step, and Sam lets him. It feels weird, touching his brother like this, strange and dangerously nostalgic. It’s like the first time he ever held Sam, those dark eyes looking up at him from the tiny face. It’s like the last time at the bus station, his hands pressed hard against Sam’s back, and the smell of diesel in the air, and the rumble of the bus and it was hard enough to breathe let alone say goodbye. Dean leaves his arms by his sides until he’s right there with Sam, and he presses his face into Sam’s neck, rubs his nose against the long stretch of Sam’s throat, instinctively seeking _closer_.

“I missed you every day,” he mutters into the salt sour of Sam’s jaw. “I hated you every day. I still hate you.” It’s not entirely the truth, but he thinks Sam understands. Sam’s smart that way. He sighs as Sam’s hand comes up to cradle the back of his head, the feel of Sam’s hands in his hair. Somehow it’s easier to find words when Sam can’t see his face. “You’re _everything_ ” he says. “You’re the whole fucking world.” Words suck, and he regrets them immediately, even as Sam’s arms wrap around him, hold him close.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” Sam whispers into the top of his head, and Dean shivers. He doesn’t know how to do this without fighting. Doesn’t know how to love without hating, not now. Sam’s long fingers find the line of his jaw and raise his face up. Sam’s eyes are rueful and somehow amused, and it makes Dean want to kick him. Only there’s something else there, too, and Dean’s ten kinds of fool but he could swear he sees _everything_ reflected right back at him. 

“You’re such a goddamn jerk,” Sam whispers, equal parts frustration and affection, and Dean can work with those odds. He grins, because, yeah, he knows, and Sam swears under his breath and bends his head to kiss Dean, and Dean feels _everything_ , right there.

This time, there’s no aggression, no violence, just Sam’s hands on him, and mouth on him, and Sam’s eyes watching every shiver and Dean hates it, hates it and loves it and he wants to get away and he wants to never escape, and Sam’s everywhere and everything and it’s just entirely out of hand and so dangerous, but it’s _Sam_ , and Sam’s here with him and nothing, nothing can be truly bad when they’re together.

It’s all shared breath and touches and slow unwrapping of clothes, careful of Dean’s cast, and when Sam finally presses into him, it doesn’t hurt, not as much as Dean wants it to, needs it to, and he pushes back, hard, only Sam’s hand is certain on his hip, and Sam won’t let him do this, and that should terrify him but it’s strangely reassuring. He struggles, hard, but Sam’s gotten strong, and patient, and obviously has something to prove.

Dean wants to crawl out of his skin, but Sam won’t let him.

He wants to scream but he can’t let himself.

He’s just caught, the strong, gentle thrusts of his brother’s body, Sam’s soft, sure words in his ear. “Shhhh, Dean, shhh now, I’m right here, just let me, god, please just let me.”  
It’s Sam’s words that defeat him, somehow, as much as his relentless control. Dean feels himself slacken against the mattress, and then he’s lax under Sam, and all he can do is take it. Sam’s voice is hushed and almost reverent, and he touches Dean like he’s shaping him anew out of the clay of the earth. 

Dean thinks he gets it, suddenly, thinks he understands, for just a faint moment, that this is what he’s been fighting, this is what he’s been avoiding, because they can’t go back, after this, can’t take this back, this can do more damage to them then all the hard words and heartfelt battles.

This. This thing they have. Sam and Dean, Dean and Sam. Tied up so tight in each other that they can neither of them break free, no matter what distance, no matter how hard they try, and Dean doesn’t know why he tries so hard because all he wants, all he ever wanted, was Sam. He doesn’t know how to want anything else. This is it. This is them. This is. This.

Dean can’t formulate the thought, and maybe that’s because there are no thoughts, not anymore, there’s nothing but Sam moving in him, holding him, eking out their pleasure until Dean can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t speak.

And then he’s coming and coming until there’s nothing left in him at all, and the last thing he remembers is Sam shuddering into him, whispering soundless endearments into the back of his neck, gripping him close and holding on like he’s never going to let go.

Dean sleeps like the dead, dreamless, and wakes, much later, tangled in warm sheets.

And Sam’s still there.


End file.
